The incidental music for Olympie was written in 1791 for a production of the play. Earlier that year, Kraus's friend and librettist Johan Henrik Kellgren, who had a particular interest in French tragedy, undertook the revision and updating of Voltaire's well-known play of the same name. He was interested in the adaptability of language - the translation of those parts taken directly from the French are skillful and literal - and the dramatic potential of the plot, in which the princess Olympie i...